I love natural color wool. Shades of gray, brown, tan, cream- I love them all. I seek out colored fleeces and when I can find a good one…well... let’s say the stash is large. In the last month I have added an oatmeal color Shetland fleece and a charcoal gray Coopworth fleece.

It’s probably true that if not for handspinners, all sheep would be white. White wool is extensively used in the textile industry because you dye it a rainbow of colors reliably from batch to batch. But even the most numerous sheep in the world, the merino, can come in shades of brown and gray. So let’s honor those lovely fleeces that give us a wonderful range of earthy colors. P.S. I included white in the pics below- it’s a lovely natural color after all. P.P.S. Yes, these are all my handspun yarns.

I have two spinning wheels (and about 40 drop spindles, but that’s for another day). A few months ago I got an Ashford Kiwi2, but my first spinning wheel was a Louet S17. It is a simple single treadle model that came flat packed, assembly required, and unfinished. Over the last 10 years later I’ve spun somewhere around 225,000 yards on it. When I received the box I didn’t assemble it right away. I painted the wheel with 2 stylized mandalas, a different one on each side. The rest of the wood I left natural although now I wish I had clear coated the wood. Assembly of the spinning wheel took only about an hour. The wood is a laminated hardwood and it has withstood several household moves and being taken to special events without so much as a scratch. I sanded around the corners because they were very sharp. The ball bearings in the wheel mechanism have always worked incredibly smooth. I only recently have replaced the flyer brake and drive band. Even if you don’t know what those terms mean, in short, I have spun a lot and done very little maintenance on it.

The Louet is a bobbin led wheel. What this means is that the drive band goes around the bobbin, which on one end has several grooves. Each of those grooves represents a ratio. Standard Louet S17 bobbins have 5:5, 7:5, 10:5 ratios. Those numbers mean for each turn of the wheel, the bobbin has turned 5 1/2, 7 1/2, or 10 ½ times. Bigger number equals faster speed. My wheel for most of it’s early yardage was on 5:5 ratio. For the last couple years it’s been almost exclusively at 7:5 ratio.

I love this wheel for spinning my fleecespun bulky art yarns which I spin from fluffed fleece. The flyer has a ½ inch orifice so anything, included felted flowers, can easily go through it. The bobbin led system pulls the yarn around the bobbin just better for spinning in the fleecespun style. I’ve tried the same yarn on my Ashford and because it’s a flyer led system it doesn’t have the same pull in as the Louet. This is not to say the Ashford is not a good wheel. It does have a place in my spinning world, which I’ll discuss in a later post. The Louet also has huge bobbins so I can easily fit 100 yards+ of bulky handspun on one.

The only thing I would change about the wheel is the treadle. I wish it was a double treadle. My Ashford is a double treadle and I just like it better. Double treadling feels effortless and has less stress on my feet and legs. They do make double treadle Louets with the bobbin led system, which I have looked into along with the Ashford Country Spinner, and the Spinolution Wind, also a bobbin led wheels.

Overall, if you are looking for an entry-level wheel that won’t break the bank I would highly recommend the Louet S17 because of ease of treadling and maintenance, as well as sheer sturdiness. It might not be the most traditional looking wheel, but it will spin many yards of yarn and just keep going.

So exactly how many pounds of Border Leicester have I spun? I lost count years ago, but a guesstimate it’s around 500 pounds. Yes, I love Border Leicester… now. But it wasn’t always this way.

In sheep longwool, I started out with Cotswold wool. Then the farm I purchased my wool from sold their flock. Cotswolds are rare in the US and the fleece is hard to find to start with, and demands a high price per pound.

So to Ebay I went. I buy fleeces from Ebay from time to time. I’ve found some wonderful farms with beautiful wool, and know which sellers to stay away from now because of less than spinning quality wool. As an aside, Etsy also has some great farm sellers, as does the website Local Harvest. But anyway, it was because of Ebay that I found the farm in Tennessee that is one of my staple farms I purchase raw wool from. Of that aforementioned 500 pounds, at least 300 is theirs.

Border Leicester is an English wool breed resulting from crossing English Leicester rams with Teeswater ewes. The breed was supposedly brought to America by George Washington who kept a few at Mount Vernon. Like most longwool sheep, the breed was on the decline during the 20th century until handspinners found the charm and uniqueness of the wool. It is also a good lamb sheep breed, which also saved it from further decline.

Enough of the history lesson. Border Leicester wool is medium to high luster, with wide crimp. I’ve found fleeces in white, as well as shades of brown. Staple length of fleeces that have grown for a year range from 5 to 10 inches. Many farms shear twice a year. It is low grease which makes washing easy. Most of the wool I have found is medium to very soft. Lamb fleeces are very soft, and have a tighter crimp. One lamb fleece had curly ends.

I love spinning the wool and do minimal preparation to keep the crimpy quality of it. All I do is sit in front of the TV and fluff wool locks and spin the slightly opened fleece. I have two wheels, and prefer my Louet S17 for my fleecespun yarns. The bobbin lead system of this wheel versus the flyer lead system on my Ashford Kiwi pulls the yarn onto the bobbin quicker and leads to less chance of overspinning. I would love to say something poetic about the wool at this point but I will let the pictures of my handspun yarn do the talking.

Do you realize that January 26th was the 35th anniversary of the Dukes of Hazzard? My friend had a party for it, and while it was fun and full of Southern fried food, it has been 35 years since that show premiered! And geez, I’m getting old. Upon further reflections on some other favorites, this October will be 30 years since U2’s Unforgettable Fire was been released. It was one of my first music purchases, and it was a cassette. One of my other favorite U2 albums, the Joshua Tree, is 27 years old. Pyromania from Def Leppard (yes, this might be strange bedfellows that my two favorite groups are U2 and Def Leppard), is 31 years old, Hysteria is also 27 years old. Once again, geez, I think I might be getting old. There is one more milestone I reach in 2014. I’ve been spinning yarn for ten years this winter. I did a calculation a few weeks ago- I’ve hand spun approximately 250,000 yards of yarn. Mostly on my single treadle Louet and drop spindles. I probably have handpainted another 100,000 yards. That’s a lot of yarn. I can also relish in other craft related milestones of achievement- 30 years of sewing, 25+ years of knitting, 20+ years of embroidery and cross stitch. So as I sit here and write this listening to Air Supply (the band)), I will remember this weekend I dyed 3500 yards of superwash and merino wool, and handspun another 300 yards of Border Leicester. And I’m not done with yarn yet.

Let me start off by saying that I pretty much own every issue of Interweave Knits since 2005, so obviously I love the publication- along with all the special issues like Knit.Wear, Interweave Knits Accessories, and the Holiday Knits issues which I do own all copies of. When I got the new issue I must say I actually got very excited for the first time in a long time. My favorite section in this issue is by far “Out by the Woodpile.” The focus of the section is items with knit and purl pattern combos that create a thermal effect in the fabric. My favorite project was the Bucheron mitts. I’m mostly a quick project knitter and these are easy and colorful. I also loved three of the pullover projects- Feathernest Raglan, Winnepeg Pullover, and Nunavut Pullover. All use in the round construction, which is the only way I have ever made a sweater. The knitting needle sizes for these three pullovers range from size US5 to US8, so they would be (relatively) quick knits. They have some texture to them which makes them interesting to look at and the pattern not so monotonous, but they are also easy to remember. The two other sections are “Below the Mesa” and “Crossing Country.” The first one highlights projects in “Southwestern” colors- muted reds, browns, with a splash of turquoise. I though the Ojos de Dios Shawl was beautiful but the rest of the projects were not really inspiring to me. I found the projects in Crossing Country too fussy for anything I would want to make except for one pattern- the Swivel Pullover. It features cables that move from the front of the back. I love this one so much I might actually tackle it this winter. For lovers of lace like me, there’s an article about the patroness of Orenberg lace- Galina Khmeleva. It has no patterns, it’s about the woman herself and talks about her quest to chart the history of Orenburg lace in Russia. Piecework (another Interweave press publication) usually has a Khmeleva pattern in it more than not, so it was nice to learn about her and not just her work. There is also a handy, short and to the point interchangeable needle directory of the different brands of these knitting tools. Interweave Knits is available from http://www.interweavestore.com directly. I have also picked it up at Joanns, Barnes and Noble, and Walmart.

Breed name get your attention? This name is not out of a comic book, there is a breed of sheep indeed named California Variegated Mutant. So let's go back to the 1960s when a sheep farmer found among his flock of solid color (probably white) Romeldale sheep a multicolored one. Over the years, at random times, the multicolored sheep would be born into the flock. He bred the colored sheep with each other(each of the sheep had different mothers, so they were not inbred with siblings) and bam!- the California Variegated Mutant (CVM for short) breed was born. The wool, like it's Romeldale parentage, is matte lustrous, fine, and soft.

It is a rare breed and wool is not readily available, the skein below if only the second time I have ever spun this breed's wool.

Well, it finally happened. I opened up a website under my yarn studio's name! Only took.... years. I promise to post new yarns I'm working on, what I dyed over the weekend, what I'm crafting, on a regular basis.